Thursday, 15 November 2012

Trying To Stay Positive... Some Help Please??

This week has been a typical week in terms of clinic appointments. Typical in that it is not always straight forward.

As you know from the last post, the weekend wasn't great. By Sunday the swelling went down a little bit and my lovely fiance took me out for lunch and a stroll (in the wheelchair) through Hampstead. Although it was cold, it was a bright, sunny, autumnal day and I love those days so I felt good.

Monday was the first appointment... In a week and a half I have to have a wisdom tooth removed but I have to have a general anaesthetic instead of local as they arthritis in my jaw prevents me opening my mouth wide enough for them to extract the tooth while I am awake. Fine, I'll have an anaesthetic, actually, I'm looking forward to that exhilarating feeling of pure peaceful sleep drawing in on me. Mondays appointment was a pre-operative assessment for this. It wasn't straight forward. The first 'problem' was that I take homeopathy and their new policy is people have to come off any herbal medications before a procedure. Homeopathy isn't herbal but I wasn't going to argue with the nurse-on-a-power-trip. Secondly, she was worried that the fact that my jaw doesn't open enough would be dangerous while having an anaesthetic. She said she'd get the Dr to call me.

He just called. After speaking to the anaesthetist, the nurse, my dentist and the maxilo-facial doctor who originally assessed me, it turns out it is too dangerous so I now have to go back to the original plan of having a local, even though it is going to be excruciating. This has been going on for 7 months, why couldn't they have figured this out earlier than a week and a half away from the procedure?? Frustrating.

That was Monday. Tuesday was spent at The Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. My favourite hospital. It is like being seen privately but on the NHS and I love it. I am patient spokesperson for the hospital and very heavily involved in its campaign to stay on the NHS. I saw my homeopathic rheumatologist, Dr Fisher, who is also clinical director of the hospital first. But trying to get through all the joints that were hurting and swollen was tricky in the short space of time we had. Although I get better treatment there than I do in any other hospital, I felt frustrated that there is never enough time to deal with my entire body, and I feel it is slightly futile to only concentrate on certain joints when homeopathy believes (as do I) in treating the body as a whole. So he gave me the remedy he thought would be best and then I went to my next clinic to have cranio-sacral therapy with the most wonderful, gentle doctor in the world. Although I had to drive back home at rush hour, I was so relaxed from that treatment that I didn't care!

Yesterday I had a 'day off', today I had acupuncture and tomorrow I have physio. I'm literally exhausted. Pain creates chronic fatigue and it just won't go...

The swelling has gone down a bit since Saturday but my jaw, left wrist, left hip, knees and ankles are all in agony so it's a bit difficult to get on with anything.

But I'm meditating every day, eating healthily and staying positive in the hope that this will aid my recovery... any positive thoughts welcome!

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About Me

Author of 'My Enemy, My Friend' - about surviving Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Patient Spokesperson for the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. Trustee of the British Homeopathic Association. Public Speaker. Campaigner. JRA Survivor. Animal Lover. Positivity lover! Please follow my 'written documentary' on what it is like to live with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis.